Guillermo Zapata, resigned as Madrid’s cultural councillor on Monday just 48 hours after accepting the role under new Madrid mayor Manuela Carmena, amid a row over anti-semitic ‘jokes’ that he tweeted back in 2011.

He had defended himself after tweets dating back to 2011 came to light arguing that they were made in the context of a debate on dark humour and before he went into politics.

On Sunday he closed down his Twitter account and apologized for the damage he caused but the row escalated and Carmena accepted his resignation on Monday afternoon.

The hashtag #ZapataDimision (Resign, Zapata) went viral in Spain, just one day after activists from the Indignados movement that organised mass street protests in 2011 became mayors in Madrid and Barcelona.

Zapata had made deeply offensive jokes about the Holocaust and gas chambers used by the Nazis during World War II. In another tweet, he had also taken aim at a victim of an attack by Basque separatist group ETA.

In a statement posted on social media platform Tumblr on Sunday, Zapata apologized, and said his jokes had been prompted by a debate on “the limits of humour”.

Claiming he did not identify with the content of his own tweets, Zapata said he was taking part in an online debate prompted by the sacking of a columnist of national daily El Pais, after he made a joke denying the Holocaust.

“Now some of those tweets, which were written within the context of a conversation on black humour, have been recovered with the goal of presenting them as though they represented my ideas — while in fact I do not defend them at all,” Zapata wrote.

“I firmly condemn all forms of racism, and, of course, anti-Semitism. I believe the Jewish Holocaust teaches us a lesson that humanity must never forget, so that it is never repeated,” he added.

Guillermo Zapata is a member of Ahora Mardid – the Madrid election front, which is backed by Podemos, and embraces a range of other forces, including other leftists and citizens’ groups). It defines itself as “«candidatura ciudadana de unidad popular» citizen platform of popular unity,and as a «partido instrumental sin vida orgánica» (an instrumental party without organic internal life). Wikipedia on this bloc and its ‘new politics': English, Spanish.

This incident perhaps reflects a problem with the entry of ‘new’ political forces without an “organic internal life”.

A Jewish man was subjected to a string of anti-Semitic abuse on the streets of two major cities in Britain in shocking video footage.

In an echo of a similar experiment carried out in Paris in February, a man filmed himself walking in Manchester and Bradford while wearing a tradition Jewish hat to gauge the reaction of passers-by.

Journalist Jonathan Kalmus said he received abuse eight times more abuse in just a tenth of the time, in his experiment for the Daily Mail, compared to the Paris case.

A similar test carried out in the German capital, Berlin, passed without incident reported the Mail. “There was a shout of ‘you Jew’ at me as I crossed the road to Bradford City Park,” Kalmus reported.

“Minutes later a man turned his head and yelled ‘fight the Jewish scum’ just behind my back. Some time later, three youths shouted at me across a street repeatedly: ‘You’re a Jew, not a Muslim… Jew, Jew, Jew run!'”

Kalmus called the results “a horrible reality”. Meanwhile, responding to the camera evidence, the leader of Bradford Council claimed the social fabric was strong in the city.

Councillor David Green said: “There are generally very good community relations in our city. Like everywhere else, there are individuals who would discriminate against other people based on their religion, ethnic origin, gender or disability, but as a council we will always challenge this when it is brought to our attention.”

However, the experience was not completely negative. In a Bradford coffee shop, Kalmus was greeted by a Muslim stranger with open arms. “Whatever was the reason for this man’s gesture and insistence that I shake his hand, it was warm and hopeful,” he said.

“It took me just one minute. One minute of walking one single, busy major street in Manchester before abuse was flung at me,” said British journalist Jonathan Kalmus, who secretly filmed himself walking in both Manchester and Bradford while wearing the kippah.

During the 25 minutes that he walked on a single street in Longsight, Kalmus said he was spat at by one man and called “a Jew” repeatedly by those passing by, even by a young boy walking with his father. A youngster on a bike later rode up to him and shouted in his face, “You’re a Jew,” according to the Daily Mail.

The situation in the streets of Bradford was “more shameful,” he said.

“It took 13 minutes, during which I was stalked by a man who repeatedly took pictures of me. He followed me on foot for five minutes and 30 seconds according to my footage,” he said. “There was a shout of ‘you Jew’ at me as I crossed the road to Bradford City Park. Minutes later a man turned his head and yelled ‘fight the Jewish scum’ just behind my back.”

While in Bradford, three youths repeatedly yelled at Kalmus from across the street, “You’re a Jew, not a Muslim…Jew, Jew, Jew run!”

Kalmus was shocked by the anti-Jewish harassment he received while wearing a kippah. He said he expected to walk for hours without being bothered but instead “I was left speechless that antisemitism is so obvious.”

“No one could accuse me of targeting Muslim neighborhoods to provoke a reaction. This was the center of an ordinary English city and I was minding my own business,” he added. “No one could accuse me of wearing something provocative or political. A Jewish person or any peaceful person walking in a British street anywhere, let alone a city center, should be welcome.”

As he faced the antisemitic hate while merely walking in the street, Kalmus said many people were content to ignore it. They heard the discriminatory remarks being hurled at Kalmus and were caught on camera turning their backs to the abuse taking place in front of them. Kalmus noted, “When someone spat on my back no one stopped to intervene.”

One uplifting instance that stood out to Kalmus was his encounter with a Muslim man at Bradford City Park’s branch of Starbucks. Kalmus said as soon as he walked into the shop, the man, who was “sporting traditional Islamic dress and a heavy black beard, raised his eyes from his drink, looked at me with wide eyes, stood up, raised his hand and said ‘Shalom, Shalom.’”

The journalist behind the investigation, Jonathan Kalmus, says,

Why did I pick Bradford? For a simple reason. Last summer during the height of another Gaza conflict between Israel and Palestinians, 5,000 people, predominantly young Muslim men, gathered for a mass rally in Bradford City Park. The city’s MP, George Galloway, spoke while flanked by two butch men wearing T-shirts emblazoned ‘Palestine’s army you are not alone’.

Mr Galloway has repeated on many, many occasions that his message and political struggle is with Israel and Israelis, not Jews. Despite that, statistics show that bringing the Middle East’s struggles onto the streets of Britain has a direct effect on how people treat Jews.

No one could accuse me of targeting Muslim neighbourhoods to provoke a reaction. This was the centre of an ordinary English city and I was minding my own business.

No one could accuse me of wearing something provocative or political. A Jewish person or any peaceful person walking in a British street anywhere, let alone a city centre, should be welcome.

“We have declared Bradford an Israel free zone,” he told party activists at the meeting in Leeds.

“We don’t want any Israeli goods. We don’t want any Israeli services. We don’t want any Israeli academics, coming to the university or the college. We don’t even want any Israeli tourists to come to Bradford if any of them had thought of doing so.

“We reject this illegal, barbarous, savage state that calls itself Israel. And you have to do the same.”

The second edition of Iran’s International New Horizon Independent Conference started its programs in the capital city of Tehran, Press TV has reported.

A number of senior investigative journalists, authors, filmmakers and renowned political activists took part in the gala.

The participants flocked to the three-day event from the UK, the United States, and several countries of Europe.

The first panel of the event hosted the presentations of several experts focused on the influence of the Zionist lobby on the West in the process of nuclear talks with Iran.

The Zionist lobby has its grip deep into different layers of the US government, American investigative journalist Wayne Madsen stated at the conference.

The Islamic Awakening movement, the role of Zionist lobbies in the European and US crises, introducing international anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist figures, and Islamic resistance against the Zionist regime are some of the topics of the conference.

The first edition of the International New Horizon Independent Conference was presented in 2012 along with a film festival centered on the related issues.

The showcased films at the festival represented Islamic resistance against the Zionist regime, war threats against Iran and anti-war movements, the Islamic Revolution of Iran, Iranophobia and Islamophobia, world without Zionism, and world without terrorism and atomic weapons.

New Horizon conference and festival is aimed at providing a platform where independent thinkers can gather together, feature their films and engage in debate and deliberation on various aspects of world and the reality of Hollywood.

To give a flavour of this event here is an extract from the Conference’s agenda (Hat-Tip: Harry’s Place) ,

We are interested in this, ” Waliyic Islam, or Post-Secularism and its Discontents.”

The speaker Hasan Rahimpour Azghadi, a member of the Iranian Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution, is noted or having said this (see link just given),

“Today, underlying all the worldwide trends of alcohol consumption, prostitution, Hollywood sex and porn, banking, usury, and sex slavery there are Zionist tendencies. This is true in the U.S., in Europe, and everywhere. There is documented data to back this up. Surprisingly, even in the days of the Prophet of Islam, they fulfilled this same role. This is true of some of them, whom the Prophet confronted for precisely these reasons. One of the allegations leveled against them in Christian Europe of the last centuries was that they are experts in controlling the markets, culture, and the media, and in seizing control of large populations by means of small groups…Zionism will not disappear through talks. The Zionist Israeli state must be annihilated.”

One aspect worth mentioning is the French collection of “senior investigative journalists” and “renowned political activists“.

As in the pre­vi­ous con­fer­ence, this year’s New Hori­zon Con­fer­ence has drawn the par­tic­i­pa­tion of sev­eral anti-Israel activists, anti-Semitic con­spir­acy the­o­rists and Holo­caust deniers. A new pres­ence at the con­fer­ence is the par­tic­i­pa­tion of a so called Amer­i­can anti-war activist, Medea Ben­jamin, a co-founder of CODEPINK.

More­over, Iran­ian news agen­cies have reported that a num­ber of other indi­vid­u­als are sched­uled to also attend the three-day con­fer­ence in Tehran. Iran­ian news agen­cies have reported the expected par­tic­i­pa­tion of Ali­son Weir, the direc­tor of If Amer­i­cans Knew and the Coun­cil for the National Inter­est, two grass­roots anti-Israel orga­ni­za­tions; Ken O’Keefe, an anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist for­mer U.S. Marine and a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to Press TV; Wayne Mad­sen, an anti-Semitic con­spir­acy the­o­rist; Cyrus McGoldrick, the for­mer Civil Rights Man­ager for the New York chap­ter of Coun­cil on American-Islamic Rela­tions; Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, the French anti-Semitic come­dian and the cre­ator of the anti-Semitic “quenelle” ges­ture; and Mark Sil­jan­der, a for­mer U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive (R-MI) who was found guilty in 2010 of two fed­eral charges relat­ing to his ties to an Islamic char­ity alleged to have funded ter­ror­ist groups.

The con­fer­ence was opened with remarks by the per­sonal advi­sor to Supreme Leader Aya­tol­lah Ali Khamenei, Mohsen Ghomi, who boasted that the con­fer­ence itself is “the biggest threat to Zion­ists,” and that “Amer­i­can offi­cials are pup­pets of the Zion­ist lobby who are tak­ing advan­tage of Amer­i­can igno­rance.” Anti-Israel jour­nal­ist Garth Porter said dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion on Mon­day that the Mossad and CIA are respon­si­ble for man­u­fac­tur­ing the nuclear cri­sis with Iran.

The 2nd New Hori­zon Con­fer­ence comes on the heels of the 13th annual Inter­na­tional Resis­tance Film Fes­ti­val that ran in Tehran from Sep­tem­ber 22–29. The film fes­ti­val included sub­mis­sions from dozens of coun­tries, includ­ing Iran, North Korea, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey, and was orga­nized by the Cin­e­matic Com­mu­nity of the Islamic Rev­o­lu­tion and Sacred Defense and the Islamic Cul­ture and Rela­tions Organization.

The “The “Islamic” State Meme, its Precursors, & the US-Israel-Saudi Triangle” appears promising.

Tehran appears ready to see the hand of Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia behind the genocidal Isis/Islamic State.

And while it is true that many of the ‘enlightened’ countries of the West such as America, Great Britain and others who worship at the altar of money, power and empire and who therefore engage in this modern-day form of human sacrifice known as serial warfare in appeasing these dark gods, there is one country in particular whose involvement in the grisly, gory business of human sacrifice operates on a very different, personal, primal, and primitive level, and that country of course is Israel.

Whereas the aforementioned countries deal in death not necessarily for death’s sake but rather as an unavoidable consequence of attaining the blessings that the aforementioned gods of money and power bring, when it comes to Israel however, the shedding of blood–innocent, defenseless blood–holds particular ‘sentimental’ significance.

More personal than just business, when it comes to the trappings, teachings and traditions of Judaism, blood is as intrinsic to its identity as bread and wine are within some Christian ceremonies. It is, after all, that ‘old time religion’ that functions as the beating heart of the Jewish state and which sustains and maintains who it is, what it is, what it does, and how it lives.’

The Rothschilds own 80% of Israel, according to Simon Schama. They built the Israeli Supreme Court. They own Reuters and the Associated Press (AP), the two biggest media agencies in the world. They have a controlling share in the Royal Dutch oil company, the Bank of England and the LBMA (London Bullion Market Association). They foment wars, install presidents, dethrone kings and bankrupt nations, such is their power.

The Rothschilds typically operate behind the scenes. In the case of Israel, the Rothschilds engineered WWI and waited until 1917 when Britain was in trouble. The Rothschilds then promised the British Government that they could get the US to enter WWI (on the side of Britain) and thus ensure Britain’s victory of Germany et al. However, they wanted something in return: Palestine. Thus the Balfour Declaration was created, which is an official letter from the British Government Foreign Secretary James Balfour to Baron Rothschild. It states that: ” His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.”’

Icke is already known for his view that ,”The ‘Jewish homeland’ was from the start a Rothschild fiefdom orchestrated through the global secret society network of interbreeding families known as the Illuminati.”

In the present context these expressions of hate have become more vehement and potentially damaging.

About 6,000 mostly peaceful protesters assembled in the Barbès area of northern Paris in defiance of a government ban. When the march was blocked by police lines after only 500 metres, a minority of young protesters started to hurl stones, bottles and sticks at the riot police.

There is a range of accounts of the responsibility for the incidents that took place, see L’Humanité, and Libération and an important direct reportage in the same paper, here.

A leader of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) said, “«La solidarité avec les Palestiniens doit pouvoir s’exprimer à Paris», a expliqué samedi à l’AFP Sandra Demarcq, membre de la direction du NPA, qui juge l’interdiction «illégitime et scandaleuse». We should be able to express solidarity with the Palestinians, explained to AFP Sandra Demarq, part of the leadership of the NPA, who judged the ban “illegitimate and scandalous”. According to the reporter at around 15.40,

Suddenly, extremely well organised and kitted out groups pushed their way through the crowd towards the front row of the CRS (riot police).

They advanced en bloc, faces covered. From what could be gleaned they had nothing of the look of activists who’d come to defend the Palestinian cause. Some of them were wearing the colours of Auteuil, a supporters’ group named after a football stand at the Parc des Princes.

In Sarcelles on Sunday however events took a clearly and illegitimate anti-Semitic turn,

France’s interior minister on Monday slammed “intolerable” acts of anti-Semitism after a rally against Israel’s Gaza offensive descended into violence pitting an angry pro-Palestinian crowd against local Jewish businesses.

Sunday’s demonstration in the north Paris suburb of Sarcelles was the third to deteriorate in a week, as shops were looted and riot police lobbed tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowd.

The rally had been banned amid concern the Jewish community would be targeted after protesters last weekend tried to storm two synagogues in Paris.

“When you head for the synagogue, when you burn a corner shop because it is Jewish-owned, you are committing an anti-Semitic act,”Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters outside the Sarcelles synagogue.

In the Paris suburb sometimes nicknamed “little Jerusalem” for its large community of Sephardic Jews, the rally descended into chaos when dozens of youth – some masked – set fire to bins and lit firecrackers and smoke bombs.

Eighteen people were arrested after looters wrecked shops, including a kosher foodstore and a funeral home as protesters shouted: “Fuck Israel!”.

Riot police held back a mob of youths who tried to attacks two synagogues in the town of Sarcelles in the northern Paris suburbs.

A pro-Gaza demonstration in a town with a large Jewish population began peacefully but degenerated into attacks on Jewish and Chaldean businesses and four hours of running battles between youths and police. Several cars were burned. Three shops, including a Kosher grocery (1), were burned and pillaged. A railway station was severely damaged.

The interior minister, Bernard Cazeneve said today: “When you menace synagogues and when you burn a grocery because it is Jewish-owned, you are committing anti-semitic acts… That is intolerable. Protest against Israel is legitimate. Nothing can justify such violence.”

…..

Roger Cuikerman, head of the French umbrella groups of Jewish organisations, CRIF, said there was a growing anxiety amongst French jews.

Protest against Israeli government actions was one thing, he said. Attacks on Jews for being Jews were “deeply disturbing”. “They are not screaming ‘death to the Israelis’ on the streets of Paris,” he said. “They are screaming ‘death to the Jews’. They are attacking synagogues which are places of prayer.”

Bernard Cazeneuve, speaking at Sarcelles this morning, said (Le Monde),

In front of the press he considered that it was “legitimate” to be able to express a position on the events in Gaza, where at least 502 Palestinians have been killed since the 8th of July. By contrast he judged that it is “intolerable that people attack synagogues and businesses because they are run by Jews. Nothing can justify such violence.” According to the police 18 people have been asserted after the incidents.

(1) The shop had been already the subject of a grenade attack in September 2013 (see here).

In an important Editorial today Le Monde says that the government’s ban on demonstrations is an admission of its impotence, “Manifestations interdites : l’aveu d’impuissance du gouvernement.”

The statement notes that President Hollande is right to be concerned about the “importation” of the Israel-Palestinian conflict into France.

But they note that the right to demonstrate, within reasonable limits, is part of the foundations of the Republic.

Article 10, “No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.”

Le Monde then accuses the government, through its ban on demonstrations of solidarity with the Palestinians, of playing, “aux pompiers pyromanes.” (firefighting arsonists, figurative, “fig., personne qui provoque volontairement les maux qu’elle est censée combattre.”, somebody who creates the very problem they claim to be solving).

Every demonstration, its timings, and its route, must be notified to the Police authorities, at least 3 days in advance. In other respects the right to demonstrate, within defined limits, is part of our public freedoms.

He appeared in one-man show with a Hitler moustache in a parody of the racist bigot.

Nicolas has stated that his intention is to “Not leave Dieudonné with the monopoly of subversion, and to remember that we can be provocative on the most sensitive issues without being oneself plagued by racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc.”

“For the most part, the pro-Dieudonné fans are fragile, culturally and intellectually, socially vulnerable and shocked by the fate of Palestinians, hence the fantasy of some sort of Israeli-Jewish-American political-media-financial conspiracy: Dieudonné continues to feed this frenzy.”

I mostly played simply a complete tosser. I knew very well in writing the sketch that people would see some housing estate scum. But I play somebody who is above all a cretin, rather than because he is an Arab (slang rebeu).

We have to stop the hypocrisy: you only have to look at the public for the shows Dieudo puts on to see that a large majority are young people of immigrant origin, wounded by their situation, contempt for society, and indifference to Palestinian suffering.

I understand their anger, but I absolutely hate to see Dieudonné and Soral taking advantage of their plight for their own narcissistic and financial reasons.”

Bedos is opposed to a public ban on the anti-Semite’s shows.

“We have to fight against the tendency to legislate on artistic matters.

Dieudonné is no longer an artist, he is a proselyte for the extreme right. But we should not forbid him from performing, that in itself expands and solidifies his audience.

Dieudonné’s public only dreams of being stifled and muzzled, and this keeps them together.

If we talk about banning, why not ban Marine Le Pen and the Front National”

I don’t know how the movement is financed. I asked Inna several times, but I didn’t get a clear answer. I don’t want to be in a movement supported by dubious money. What if it is financed by Israel? I want to know.

And then, I don’t want my name to be associated with an Islamophobic organization. I did not appreciate the action taken by the girls shouting “Amina Akbar, Femen Akbar” in front of the Tunisian embassy in France, or when they burned the black Tawhid flag in front of a mosque in Paris. These actions offended many Muslims and many of my friends. We must respect everyone’s religion.

But these actions were taken to support you while you were in prison. Why didn’t you consider them as such?
I thank them all for their support. Especially Joséphine, Marguerite and Pauline, who were also imprisoned. They took some good actions, but it wasn’t the case for all of them. They should have asked for my lawyer’s advice before taking some of these actions. This made my case even more difficult. Because of the protests I was charged with a new crime, “criminal conspiracy,” when I was in prison.

Have you informed the Femen group about you quitting the organization?
No. They are not going to like it, but that’s the way it is.

So, you decided to quit the organization, but you posted another topless photo just four days ago…
Yes, a topless photo of myself bearing a painted circled A, the anarchist symbol. It’s different.

Amina then announced her possible support for an Anarchist group Feminism Attack.

She declared that the “problème c’est tout le système” , the problem is the whole system (original – bizarrely translated in the English language Huffington Post as “I don’t like the system altogether”).

We strongly suspect this is the source of Amina’s ‘concern’ about the money behind Femen.

From what is known about their funding: the key player appears to be an individual named Jed Sunden. (6) Sunden is a Brooklyn-born American Jew who founded a major Ukrainian newspaper/media company; KP Media (which owned the Kyiv Post till 2008/2009 for example) , (7) and also is an active part of the Ukrainian jewish community. (8) Sunden was the man who‘discovered’ Femen and it was he who began to give them the oxygen of publicity (and notoriety) for their topless protesting in the Kyiv Post.

This Jewish money and influence behind Femen seems to also be reflected in the organization’s public activities in so far as it protest against a vast number of things in different countries, including outraging Islamic opinion by performing topless stunts in North Africa and outside mosques in Europe. (13) This is in addition to Femen’s attacks on anything even remotely conservative as being‘patriarchal’ as well as their fairly crude hatred of religion writ large (and without qualification), but primarily of Christianity and Islam which they consider (as good third wave feminists) to be ‘evil patriarchal religions’ responsible for ‘innumerable atrocities against women’ as being intrinsically deeply oppressive towards the fairer sex.

There is plenty in the same vein from Russian racist sites, and the British ‘Stormfront‘.